The Good Earth (Enriched Classics) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "IT WAS Wang Lung's marriage day..." (more)
Key Phrases: House of Hwang, Old Mistress, Pearl Buck (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

Boston Transcript One need never have lived in China or know anything about the Chinese to understand it or respond to its appeal. -- Review --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Description

A classic novel by a Nobel Prize-winning author offers a graphic view of China during the reign of the last Emperor, and tells the story of an honest farmer and his wife as they struggle with the sweeping changes of the twentieth century. Reissue.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Pocket (December 1, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0671510126
• ISBN-13: 978-0671510121
• Product Dimensions: 7.2 x 4.2 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (384 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #379,267 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

127 of 135 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A PROFOUND STORY SIMPLY TOLD..., September 18, 2004

By	Lawyeraau (Balmoral Castle) - See all my reviews (TOP 10 REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)

This review is from: The Good Earth (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

This 1932 Pulitzer Prize winning novel is still a standout today. Deceptive in its simplicity, it is a story built around a flawed human being and a teetering socio-economic system, as well as one that is layered with profound themes. The cadence of the author's writing is also of note, as it rhythmically lends itself to the telling of the story, giving it a very distinct voice. No doubt the author's writing style was influenced by her own immersion in Chinese culture, as she grew up and lived in China, the daughter of missionaries.

This is the story of the cyclical nature of life, of the passions and desires that motivate a human being, of good and evil, and of the desire to survive and thrive against great odds. It begins with the story of an illiterate, poor, peasant farmer, Wang Lung, who ventures from the rural countryside and goes to town to the great house of Hwang to obtain a bride from those among the rank of slave. There, he is given the slave O-lan as his bride.

Selfless, hardworking, and a bearer of sons, the plain-faced O-lan supports Wang Lung's veneration of the land and his desire to acquire more land. She stays with him through thick and thin, through famine and very lean times, working alongside him on the land, making great sacrifices, and raising his children. As a family, they weather the tumultuousness of pre-revolutionary China in the 1920s, only to find themselves the recipient of riches beyond their dreams. At the first opportunity, they buy land from the great house of Hwang, whose expenses appear to be exceeding their income.

With the passing of time, Wang Lung buys more and more land from the house of Hwang, until he owns it all, as his veneration of the land is always paramount. With O-lan at this side, his family continues to prosper. His life becomes more complicated, however, the richer he gets. Wang Lung then commits a life-changing act that pierces O-lan's heart in the most profoundly heartbreaking way.

As the years pass, his sons become educated and literate, and the family continues to prosper. With the great house of Hwang on the skids, an opportunity to buy their house, the very same house from where he had fetched O-lan many years ago, becomes available. Pressed upon to buy that house by his sons, who do not share Wang Lung's veneration for the land and rural life, he buys the house. The country mice now have become city mice.


This is a potent story, brimming with irony, yet simply told against a framework of mounting social change. It is a story that stands as a parable in many ways and is one that certainly should be read. It illustrates the timeless dichotomy between the young and the old, the old and the new, and the rich and the poor. It is no wonder that this beautifully written book won a Pulitzer Prize and is considered a classic masterpiece. Bravo!

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Way to Understand China, May 26, 2002

By	W. Carol "dog lover" - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

When great political upheaval occurs, do the "ordinary people" even know about it? How does it affect their lives? Is social change something palpable, or only something one can see in retrospect?

These questions are addressed in Pearl Buck's moving and exquisitely written Pulitzer-Prize-winning novel, "The Good Earth." It is the story of a simple Chinese peasant, Wang Lung. We first meet him as a young man on his way to pick up his bride, whom he has purchased from the estate of a wealthy landowner.

Wang Lung is a farmer, barely able to survive, but it is time for him to marry and produce a grandchild for his aged father, who lives in his simple farm hut and is shown great reverence, as was the way in China at the time.
The only way that Wang Lung could afford a wife at all, and a virgin, which was highly desired, was to purchase an ugly female slave from the great house. All of the pretty slave women were defiled by the master and his sons early on; O-lan was so ugly that she was spared. Harsh? Evil? Yes. But the story is told with such simplicity, from the viewpoint of Wang Lung, who knows no other life. Which is one of Buck's points: the simple Chinese peasant, struggling to survive, had no wherewithal to stand back and say, "I should not be buying an undefiled slave from a corrupt landowner who keeps me in virtual slavery as well." It just didn't happen that way.

O-Lan turns out to be the perfect farmer's wife, hardworking, efficient, and, it turns out, wonderfully fertile. The scene where the young woman painfully gives birth in the field during harvest time and then goes back to work without missing a beat is almost a cliche by now. But in the book, it gives great insight into the strength of character that the silent O-Lan possesses, a strength that will save her family time and again, during good years and famine times, when she is forced to murder a newborn daughter so that the rest of her children might survive.

Against the framework of tremendous social change, the simple story of this one family gives us a framework within which we can observe its effect on ordinary people. The tremendous difference between the innocent and humble Wang Lung of the beginning of the book, and the prosperous and slightly corrupt elderly man at the end, is simply astoundingly written.
This book is Pearl Buck's single greatest work. She went on to become a prolific writer, and many of her books were brilliant, but none ever touched the simple genius of "The Good Earth."

27 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Pride is his undoing~, March 9, 2005

By	M. Stahl (Kent, Ohio) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Good Earth (Oprah's Book Club) (Paperback)

This is an easy book to read. The story is one that is totally universal; power corrupts and distorts us, on any level. The main character is a poor farmer who works hard but is just holding even with life. When he takes a bride, a slave girl who is plain quiet, his life turns around. As Wang Lung's fortunes change for the better - mostly due to the additional help of his new bride, his character shifts with his growing purse. Greed, pride and materialism take root in his soul. This isn't about a man who goes mad as he becomes a king; this is about the slow slide down as a man goes from being a poor farmer to a landowner. Not grandly wealthy by "city" standards, but wealthy from his own perspective. He is unable and unwilling to grasp how it's his wife's work that has brought him to this wealth. It's a story about how having nothing, and then getting a little something can make us want more and more. Pride and greed rob Wang Yung of his daily joys.

This story has staying power. I read it a few months ago and it continues to wind its way through my mind. I have re-examined my own desires and my own definition of wealth. It's worth the read, easy to digest and a very pleasurable tale.